Catching Up

Since our visit to the house at Thanksgiving, time has been dragging. Freight this year has slacked off significantly, or at least it seems to have. Probably a person would think that it was the holidays causing it, but really, we've kept moving through the holidays in years past. And talking to other drivers, we're hearing the same complaints. Slow freight, low rates, and boggled up loads.

 

Overall, it's working out alright, but we've hit a slump here and there that left us bored and cranky. We had a couple of loads rejected too and that's always frustrating because it wastes our time, even though we still get paid for hauling the stuff.

 

And we had a couple days, both Monday's actually, where a decent load couldn't be found and we wound up sitting all day twiddling our thumbs. Something we're not used to doing.

 

With all that, my motivation for blogging was down. You'd think with all that spare time I'd have been on it. Something to entertain myself with! But given the blah mood it brought on, and the fact that I've had my nose glued to my Kindle during every spare moment lately, as I've stumbled across some really good books, the blogging got neglected.

 

So it's time to play catch up.

 

Two weekends ago, we headed north out of Phoenix, spent the night at Las Vegas, and the next day drove up US93 through eastern Nevada.

There's a lot of vacant land out there. US 93 goes up through the Great Basin National Park. We take a short cut and go off 93 for a bit in order to stay going straight north instead of swerving east. So we miss the park itself, but the scenery on the rest of 93 is still admirable. I think the most striking things about the region are...

 

...the almost absolute emptiness. We passed through about 4 "towns" in about 300 miles.

 

And also the patterns in the mountain sides are quite interesting. With a lack of trees and really much any kind of vegetation, you can admire the geology of the area from your car window. There was a lot of activity here eons ago. You can tell the ground was busy moving around.

fascinated by that black stripe of rock running through the mountain

its hard to tell what was going on here. Earthquakes? Floods? Those swirling lines of rock could keep you guessing for quite a while.



We delivered northeast of Boise Idaho on Monday morning (Dec. 3) and then sat all day long waiting to see what would come up. And the answer was nothing. Finally, Monday evening, we got directions to head to Caldwell, ID (near Boise) to load apples in the morning.

 

So Tuesday morning we loaded up apples...

...and headed to an unexpected location. The times in the past that we've hauled apples, they either went to Petaluma, CA or to Wisconsin. But these apples went to a town near Grand Junction, CO.  There was, to my great surprise, several wineries, vinyards, orchards, and this little juice making company where we delivered. I never would have thought the arid climate in western Colorado could have supported fruit, but apparently it does.

 

From there, we bounced down to Monte Vista, where we were a couple weeks earlier, and loaded canola.

 

Back to Idaho, near Rexburg, for a Thursday morning delivery and then we went down to southern Idaho and loaded fertilizer.

 

Interesting frustration occurred in Colorado. Out of the blue, I got wrapped up in a massive allergy battle. Violent sneezing, itchy watery eyes, sniffles......in Colorado....in December! I was very aggravated, as the winter is supposed to be my time of allergy liberation. What was up with that? The allergies followed me all they way to Idaho and persisted in annoying me throughout the day on Thursday.

winter skies near Soda Springs, ID







In fact I didn't find relief until I climbed into the mountains of the Yellowstone area near the MT/ID state line. My allergies cleared up right about the time the tires started slipping and sliding around on icy roads. And by Yellowstone the freezing rain had turned to snow, and I was breathing clearly. I guess there was just enough dust and garbage in the air to make us allergy victims suffer. Clearly, it's a dry winter following a too dry summer.

 

Crossing into Montana was like flipping a switch. All of a sudden we found winter, and it's been following us around ever since. We were on snowy roads almost all the way to Billings, and past that, though it dried up, it was still bitterly cold.  By the time we got to North Dakota Friday morning with our fertilizer, it was 6 degrees and a heavy fog was just lifting, at least the fog that hadn't frozen to every surface available.

Frozen fog can be messy, but it sure is pretty!

w

Since the load of apples, things had run smoothly, but we hit another glitch in North Dakota. After unloading, we were going to take a load of flax to Ohio. But the trailer had to be washed out first which presented a huge problem.

First and foremost, the closest place to washout was 160 miles away, in the wrong direction, from our reload, which was only 20 miles away. And a bigger issue was that even if we could find a place to wash out, at 6 degrees, the trailer doesn't wash. It freezes. The broker asked if we could just sweep really really well, but they turned that request down. No washout, no load.

So we sat around in northern ND for most of the day, and finally towards evening we got a load of safflower from Fairview, MT and headed south towards Colorado. 600 miles and the whole weekend to get it done. So we took our time, played some, rested lots, and made the best of it.

 

I'lll tell you about the weekend in the next post.





Pleasant Days

This has been a good week with a good start and a good end, so far. We've been in some of my favorite states. I love travling in the mid-west and always feel happier when we're doing that. And we've also had some pleasant experiences and surprises. I'll tell you all about it.

Last weekend was one of the best we've had on the road in a long time. We had another load of barley to haul from western Montana to eastern Minnesota. We loaded on Friday morning and could have gone home for the day on Saturday, but instead we decided to take an easy weekend and just putter our way across.

It was a great decision. Malcolm has been so tired and stressed out, and I knew if we went home, he'd spend the whole day working on the truck or other things, where as if we just took our time getting to Minnesota, he'd get to sleep in several mornings and get some rest.

In addition to his rest, we had some fun experiences. It started Thursday evening when we had dinner with his sister and her husband in Great Falls. Then Friday morning, after delivering in Fort Benton, Malcolm drove us down onto the main street along the river and we found this neat little coffee shop where we sat out on the deck and enjoyed lattes and waffles with blueberries. We also walked a short bit of the river walk they have there and read the historic markers the town has put up.

Finally we decided we'd been dragging around long enough. Time to get loaded. So we drove the whopping 14 miles to Carter and loaded up our barley. We puttered our way across 200 miles of scenic Montana two lanes, and stopped at a rest area for the night, waking up late in the evening to a magnificent lightning storm and down pour, which made the air smell so good and cooled things off quite a bit too.

Saturday we drove all of 350 miles to Bismarck, where we spent the evening telling stories and laughing the night away with Malcolm's other sister and her husband. They took us to a neat ice cream place for dessert and we stayed till almost closing. Then they took us back to our truck and we drove 30 miles to a quite rest area and turned in for the evening.

That had left 600 miles or so for Sunday. I expected it to have less of a weekend feel to it having so far to go. After a leisurely breakfast, we buckled down to business and headed east. I was glad we were getting past Minneapolis on a Sunday. I've never been through there when traffic wasn't thick and sluggish. But it flows kind of smooth on a weekend, and we got through with only one hang up.

still west of Minneapolis. Minnesota's rolling hills are pretty.

Our destination of Winona wasn't too far south of the big city. The previous weekend when we'd hauled this load, we'd gone across South Dakota on I-90. This time we came across North Dakota on I-94, thus having to deal with the big city, but also adding a new point of interest to our trip, though at the time, I didn't know we were going to see it.

We were south of Minneapolis, driving along the Mississippi River when I glanced up from my book just in time to see a billboard and all I caught, before it disappeared behind us, was the word Pepin.

Little alarms were going off in my brain. Pepin! Really???? So I snapped the book shut and zipped into planning on the GPS and typed in Pepin, WI.

Sure enough! We were almost into the city limits of Lake City, MN and Pepin, WI was just the other side of the river. I was thrilled!

Now, does anyone have any idea why I was so excited to be there?

hint: it has to do with a rather famous "little house."

Pepin, WI is the home town of my very very dear and beloved friend, Laura Ingalls Wilder! She was born in the "big woods" near the town of Pepin!

Lake Pepin was the lake that Pa drove across the frozen ice in the wagon to go to town, the lake where Laura picked up so many pretty pebbles that the pocket ripped off her dress and Ma had to scold her for being a greedy little girl. And Pepin is the town where the store was and the nice store owner who gave Laura and Mary each a stick of candy and Mary licked hers slowly to make it last, but Laura just ate hers because it was so good. At least I think that's the way she told me it happened.

Anyway, I think I've completed nearly all the main home sights......at 65 miles an hour. We've driven within 6 miles of De Smet, SD, passed the exit for Mansfield, MO, and now I've seen Pepin, WI....from across the lake. Maybe one day I'll get to actually go to these places!

At Lake City, the town on the Minnesota side of the lake, we were hungry, and I think Malcolm had noticed that I'd gone from bored to alert and glued to the window, so he found a parking place along the street, across from the marina...



apparently they like to sail on Lake Pepin



...where we were the only truckers in a crowd of summer tourists, our vehicle standing out like a sore thumb. But who cares!

We walked across the road to a little pizza joint that was run by a husband and wife. They were doing a booming business in delivery, but we had the dining room to ourselve,

and so we relaxed and enjoyed a really yummy cheese pizza and visited with the husband between his delivery trips. He was a very friendly fellow.

Look how patient he's being with me and my camera! He was really trying to indulge me. He even offered to take the pizza across the road to a picnic table, even though it was 95 degrees outside and we'd found the humid side of the country. That was really generous of him, but I was happy in the AC and quiet, so we stayed there.

After dinner, we packed up our left overs for a later snack (large cheese pizzas are perfect for meals and later snacks or second meals!) and headed on south. A few miles later, we were passing the south end of the "lake," which is just a widened section of the Mississippi River (Laura never mentioned that to me). And across the lake, through the summer haze, was the town of Pepin, WI. I waved as we went past.

By the way, did you know that aside being famous because Pa Ingalls drove across it with his wagon in Laura's book, it has two other claims to fame? Apparently, Lake City, on the shores of Lake Pepin, is where water skiing was invented. And also, Lake Pepin has it's own lake monster. Seriously! His name is Pepie. Laura never told me these things either. I think maybe she's been holding out on me, but I'll forgive her because I love her that much.

It was only maybe another 45 miles or so to Winona, where we delivered our barley right along the river, that evening. As we were leaving to head back north and to our morning pickup, we got to enjoy seeing a barge up close. As I said in last weeks post, this place was so close to the river that if we rolled too far, we'd fall in and drift over to Wisconsin.

We stopped once we got to the other side of Minneapolis. We were tired, but had wanted to get back to the west side of the city so we could skip Monday morning traffic. Our reload was on the eastern side of Minnesota in Benson. We loaded wheat there in the morning and headed out towards Colorado.

I can't for the life of me remember where I took the above picture. Somewhere between Minnesota and Colorado, and since it pretty much sums up the scenery for most of the trip, I posted it. South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and eastern Colorado = fairly flat and grainy (like corn, wheat, etc).

Sheridan Lake, CO is right on the Kansas/Colorado border, more or less. That's where the wheat went. And then we hopped 30 miles east to Marienthal, KS to load more wheat, organic this time, and took it to a mill north of Denver. That was an easy 250 mile trip and we were loaded and empty the same day. We got there 30 minutes before they closed.

Emptied out, we headed north towards Mitchell, NE, as scattered storms moved into northern Colorado.

The storms were just the ticket to get things cooled off, and we were able to sleep with the truck turned off and the windows open. We've been managing to do that a lot lately, which is nice because it's quiet and saves fuel.

We loaded great northern white beans in Nebraska and headed off for our drive to eastern North Dakota. The skies have been really pretty the last couple of days.

Scottsbluff National Monument in Scottsbluff, NE

pretty blue skies over the South Dakota prairie. That black area is what's left after a grass fire. There was a black scar for miles to the horizon where the smoke was still billowing up into the sky. Guess it was still burning it's way across the grasslands.

this morning in southeast North Dakota.

All those little puffy clouds have spent the day gathering together and now I'm sitting in a parking lot in Wahpeton, ND admiring tall billowing clouds with dark gray bottoms. It's also dropped in temperature to 75. A few more degrees and we'll shut the truck off for the day.

We delivered this morning west of here, and tomorrow morning we'll load sunflower chips across the state line in Minnesota. They wouldn't load us till morning though, so for now Malcolm sleeps and I'm catching up on a few things and trying to entertain myself.

Lucky you. It means I didn't have an excuse to put off blogging, which I've kind of done this week. I've been enjoying being in some of my favorite states and also had my nose buried in another good book. So you got neglected. Hope you don't mind.

We'll probably stop at the house on Saturday and then drive to Spokane, WA on Sunday where we'll deliver. So from last Monday to this coming one, our week will have looked like this.

I'm still trying to perfect my technique when taking pictures of the computer screen, got to get around that reflection somehow, but for now...the green lines are roughly the routes we took and the flags our destinations.

Sprinkles on the windshield! I would really enjoy a good storm right now! But a rain shower will work too.

Lessons

I learned a few lessons this weekend. Let me share them with you.

Friday evening we loaded potatoes in northeast Idaho. We were last in a line of about 20 trucks when we pulled in and it was about 5 hours before they got to us.

They were supposed to stop loading at 6:00pm. By 8:00, when they finally got to us, it had gotten windy and stormy. There was lightening and thunder, rain splatters on the windshield, and it was getting dark fast. There were 3 more trucks behind us, and thankfully they had committed to finishing loading all of us.

Malcolm drove us over the gravel short cut to US20, and then I took over around 10:00pm or so. Up through Yellowstone country and then east across Montana. Malcolm took back over 40 miles east of Billings around 4:00am, and I went to  bed.

An hour later, he woke me up. We were almost to Miles City and he had been thinking how silly it was to go deliver in Grand Forks that afternoon and then sit there till Monday morning when we could go home. And was that ok with me? If we just went home?    (as if he needed to ask)

After that, sleep was a lost cause. I maneuvered through the entire day on 1 hour of sleep. The cup of coffee while visiting around the in-laws kitchen table helped.

We had arrived just in time for bottle feeding. I'd made friends with these little ones while we were home the previous 2 weeks, but apparently a week's absence is just long enough to become a stranger. At least the twins weren't shy.

 Of course their excitement wasn't about my return. It was more over the arrival of breakfast.

 This little red one is so cute. I have a thing for red calves. Unfortunately he's a bull.

 In fact, out of the 6, only one is a heifer, and that's one of the twins. So no bottle babies will be staying on this year, unless another one joins the group. But hopefully everyone else will stay in the pasture.

After feeding, we headed inside where I flipped through my quilting fabric and patterns. Just looking because it's fun to look. Then I went next door and helped my mother-in-law get lunch started. A friend had come over to help work on the basement remodeling, and so she was going to fix lunch for all of us. Which was a lifesaver for me, since I had no groceries really that went together, part of the cause for my inability to return to sleep that morning. My mind wouldn't focus on sleep, but instead kept returning to the issue of what I was going to feed us that day. As it turned out, lunch was D.E.L.I.C.O.U.S! And even better with the fun conversations and visiting going on around the table.

Lunch well on it's way to being ready, I noticed the rain had stopped for the moment, and decided to slip out the door and go see the horses. No trip home is complete until I've been out to visit and check on everyone.  After 5 months in the corral, they were finally out on grass.....and no where to be seen.

 The pastures are rather vast (or rather it seems so to me having grown up where farms were 20-30 acres), and so you have to go looking for the horses, something I don't mind at all. I always enjoy excursions into nature. I'd ride around out there all day long exploring if I could. And really, I could if I'd let myself, but I'd be missed by Malcolm and the girls.

I got distracted several times along the way. First I noticed that the spring wildflowers are finally making an appearance.

 And then I stopped to watch a lone antelope who was watching me. He got tired of watching before I did, and headed off in the other direction.

 I continued on my way, looking off into the horizon for white spots that would indicate the presence of painted ponies. Still didn't see them anywhere, but I did spot this pair of hawks acting strange.

 And then I saw the reason why. They had a nest nearby and I was under surveillance.

 I was tempted to climb up and see what was in it, but I was on a mission and worried the rain was going to catch back up with me.

Ah HA! There they are! In the very back corner, of course!

 That is a scene I so enjoy! So I parked on the side of the hill and just soaked it in, while everyone kept an eye on me to see what I was up to. After a moment I quickly realized something wasn't quite right. But before I could go investigate, I had to get the initial visiting over with.

My boy had finally stopped eating long enough to notice I was there, and he was making fast tracks up the hill to come see me.

 

 Ignoring Sky just sets you up for a lot of harassment. He doesn't understand not being the center of attention. So you just have to love on him before anyone else. And then he only makes a slight nuisance of himself. He will be your constant shadow and sticking his nose into everything you do, regardless of how much you love on him, or push him away.

 His gray is really starting to show this year and he's put on a lot of size this past winter. I'm hoping to have him at a trainer by the end of the summer. Maybe we can have our first ride together in the fall!

 Greetings taken care of....with everyone because by the time Sky was done, the others had congregated around us....I finally got on to the problem I'd spotted from the hillside. And here she is....
....Miss Problem, in the neighbors pasture.

 And not too terribly upset over it or too interested in coming back home.

 She grew a lot this winter too, especially her main and tail! She is now 10 months old and still very much the princess of the pasture. Maybe she was expanding her territory, and felt a need to be princess of the neighbors pasture too.

It wasn't hard to find how she'd managed her little migration. And here is where Ranch Lesson #1 was learned.

*Never Ever Ever go visiting with the horses without a halter and lead rope, just in case.

Gemma is compliant enough that I'm pretty sure I could have led her over the lowest spot or at least to the gate down the way. But she was convinced the grass truly is greener on the other side of the fence, her new side, and wasn't interested in being led with my arm around her neck like she usually is willing to go along with.

 Halter and lead, don't leave home without it!

Why does it look like she's trying to convince big brother to join her in her new kingdom?

 I had no choice but to head back home for help and just hoped that the other 6 wouldn't take it in their minds to defect to the neighbors country. As I drove away they were lined up at the low spot in the fence gazing across at Gemma who was contentedly grazing on her new found "better" grass.

Almost home, I had to stop and open a gate to pass through, and this is where Ranch Lesson #2 kicked in.

As I was struggling with the gate, the four wheeler sputtered and died. *sigh*
Turned the key and nothing. The screen didn't even light up. No sputter, no whir, no click...nothing. (I'll fill you in on what the actual lesson was here in a moment)

So I hiked home, probably about a mile, in muck boots, which really aren't designed for long distance walking. They are a bit bulky and heavy. However, when I had to walk across the stream I was very thankful for the muck boots as I still had dry feet when I got to other side.

I was about 1/4 mile from the house when the pickup pulled out and headed towards me. Finally, I'd been spotted.

My poor husband, my knight in shining armor. By the time he'd changed shoes and we'd collected a chain and halter, the rain had started to drizzle lightly and the wind had picked up a little.

Lesson#3: TAKE THE CAMERA WITH YOU ALWAYS!

I left the camera at home and so there are no more illustrations for the rest of the story. Wish I'd taken one back out. Our first stop, riding double on the other four-wheeler, was the horses. They'd moved down the fence line and were closer in to the buildings, and conveniently standing near a gate!

Malcolm stopped back from them, and I walked in, and climbed across the fence to get Gemma, who had followed them on her "greener grass" side. My horses may not have a lot of skills or knowledge, but they are all very good about letting you walk right up to them and put a halter on them, something I'm eternally grateful for. It was no big issue to halter Gemma and lead her to the gate, where Malcolm was, by this time, waiting for us. The only difficulty was that the gate was standing in a large area of ankle deep mud and Gemma (nor I) really wanted to go in it. But we convinced her to come on across. At some point between my leaving for help and returning, she had tried to cross the fence, resulting in 4-5 fresh ugly red slashes across her chest.

 I know in the prim and proper world, horses are never, ever fenced with barbed wire. But in the realistic world we live in, our horses share pasture with cattle, and so it's all fenced in barbed wire. And yes, it results in the occasional cuts and scrapes. I'm sure some will take issue with me over this, and I don't necessarily like it either. But, like I said, our world is realistic, not perfect, and so am I.

Gemma's cuts were ugly, but not terribly deep. They'll heal and she shouldn't have scars. If I were home, I'd probably get something to put on it just in case, but I'm not and she'll be fine. She's not the first to get cut, and it probably won't be her last cuts either.

Horses happily reunited, we headed on to the next project, but before we got there, I showed Malcolm  the hawk nest. Might as well make the trip enjoyable if we're out there anyway. He wanted to hike up to it, so we did. It was a short climb. There were 4 speckled eggs, a little larger than chicken eggs. Again, no camera, and I'm disgusted with myself over it. But when we return for branding in about three weeks, I bet there will be chicks. We're planning a return trip to see them.

And then back to work. We drove to the back corner where I got my next ranch lesson, something I'd been asking him to show me just a few days prior as we were riding along in the truck one day. There are a number of blogging ranch women whom I read and they all go out and fix fence by themselves. If they can do it, then so can I, or at least this was what I was explaining to Malcolm, if someone (ahem....HIM) would just show me! So, presented with the perfect and necessary moment, Malcolm showed me how to patch together a broken fence. I'm not very strong, but it didn't look to hard, and I figure I can at least patch them together until some serious fixing can be done, should the need arise.

Back to Ranch Lesson #2

On to our final mission, and as he was pulling up to the dead four wheeler I'd abandoned at the gate, he'd already asked me some question concerning what I was doing when it died. And then he asked me if I had flipped the engine power switch.

The what?

Lesson #2: All four wheelers have a "cut engine power" switch on the handle bar that is bright red and hard to miss, and apparently is really easy to accidentally hit, at least it is if you are me.

Sure enough, it was in the off position. Flip the switch and the silly thing starts right up without even a sputter.

Oops! That was a little embarrassing!

But thankfully a very easy fix, and he had to come out in the rain anyway, to fix the fence and help me get Gemma back home. I told him he was my Knight in Shining Armor (or rather muddy jeans). He told me that I was his little airhead (in a loving way, not ugly).

Afterwards, we returned to the house to join in a dinner already in progress. It was very good! Then we relaxed at home a little while. Later we went out for some target shooting, but it had gotten really windy and cold. So he went back to the house, and I went to the barn with my mother-in-law to feed the bottle calves one more time. We watched a little TV and went to bed. I was ready for some sleep. It was a really nice day, despite of, or perhaps because of the mishaps. I wouldn't have been outside for nearly that long, or gotten to spend that time with Malcolm if things had gone otherwise. And really, my walk to the house after the breakdown was very pleasant. You see and hear so much more when your walking and not on a four wheeler!

So from hence forth, I'll not leave the house without a halter and lead (if I'm heading to horse country), my camera, fencing pliers, and Malcolm!  Ok, well I might leave Malcolm behind. I can always go fetch him if the need arises, so he doesn't need to come every time!

We pulled out this morning to finish the trip to Grand Forks, ND.

The clouds have cleared and it's been a lovely day. We arrived in Grand Forks about an hour ago and it's in the mid-70's over here. Just a lovely Spring day! We'll unload and drive 120 east and north tonight so we'll be ready to reload in the morning. We're taking another load of seed potatoes back to the town in Idaho where we picked this current load up.

More of the Same

My sister and her family just returned home from a magical trip to the Magic Kingdom,

and Mom and Dad are driving around the Oregon coast as we speak on an incredible dream vacation.

What are we doing? We are on yet another trip from North Dakota to California. All 5 of us are getting really bored with the scenery on this route. The dogs don't even come up to the cab much any more. Even the stuffed ones are sick and tired of this trucking thing.

Which is why I haven't blogged for a while, a little over a week actually. Seeing the same thing over and over does not inspire much. I just haven't been in the mood, haven't had much of interest to share, and quite frankly, I've been too tired to care much about anything. Tired from driving and weary of the road. Which sounds pathetic, and I'm not shopping for sympathy. Just telling you where I've been.

But for whatever reason, the blogging mood struck this morning around 3:00 and I composed three blog posts in my mind as I drove, and then had to choose. I decided to just go update you on what we've been up to and then share other stuff later.

Mt Shasta as viewed from Weed, CA

Last week I think I told you, after our long weekend waiting in Sacramento, we took a load of pears to Portland? Did I tell you or was that on facebook? Well, anyway, that's what we did, and from Portland we bounced empty over to Moses Lake, WA to load more sunflower seeds. Yes, sunflower seeds. I think its the only thing anyone grows anymore!

Along the way, we drove the Columbia River Gorge again, which is always enjoyable, and stopped at a little rest area to take a quick break, and even though we were in a hurry, I took the time to take a picture of Beacon Rock and read the plaques there. It was interesting. I have a dream of taking a vacation like Mom and Dad's with no agenda in which I stop at every single roadside point of interest, all the ones I've driven past over the last 5 years and not gotten to stop to see. Maybe I'll stop at them all twice on my dream trip just to make it up to myself.

 Also on the way to Moses Lake, after leaving the river and heading across the high plains of Washington, we found the Columbia again, and crossed it again. I love the way the sky looks in this picture, like that gap in the mountains is sucking not only the river water up, but the sky and clouds too. Kind of interesting.

 And on the other side of the river, we climbed the big hill, passing this little water fall...

 ...and also Wild Horses Monument.

 All of those things can be seen from I-90 in central Washington, and we've seen them all before. More of the same for us. But I've not put them on the blog, I think, so it was new stuff to show you so there you go!

And then we arrived in Moses Lake to load our sunflower seeds.

 From there, it was off to Breckenridge, MN, once again, more of the same. Drove through Montana which took all night, and morning found us in western North Dakota on a beautiful morning driving past Theodore Roosevelt National park. Doesn't this picture just make you ache to climb on a horse and go explore?

Miles and miles of exploring to be done there. One of these days....

After our sunflower seed load, we took a load of beet pulp pellets to California. More of the same. We made record time so we could get there and deliver early (like 3:00am) Saturday morning, so we could drive back to Sacramento and load sunflower seeds for Fargo. More of the same.

We left Sacramento with what was to be the last load of sunflower seeds from there until November...probably. They were too moist and so they stopped harvesting for a while until the seeds have time to dry out more.

By Sunday morning sunrise, I was west of Billings, MT passing the Crazy Mountain range in a mist of rain with a rainbow behind me and a gorgeous sunrise in front.

We delivered in Fargo yesterday morning, then sat most of the day waiting for Devils Lake, ND to have enough product to load us.

We left there around midnight last night, and this morning we were west of Billings again, looking at the Crazy Mountains from a different angle with a little more snow on top, and a lot more sunshine.

We're hauling another load of pea flour to that mill in Sacramento. More of the same. And from what I hear, we're loading in Stockton tomorrow morning, and heading to Idaho.

From Idaho, who knows. But we're supposed to get home next week sometime...preferably early on. And I swear! If I see California again before we go home for a break, I'll scream!

Ella agrees. She's already practicing. It's been a very successful round on the road, but I think we're all in agreement. Nine weeks is too long to be gone!

I know this whole post sounds rather negative, but I have to share the ups and downs if this is truely going to be a representation of my life. And right now, even though I still enjoy my job and don't want to be doing something else, its just time for a break! I'm physically and mentally weary. But one more week, and I can rejuvinate and boy howdy, am I looking forward to it! Home and Horses... two things that are a garuntee to make me feel better.